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Table of Contents MALAWI COUNTRY READER TABLE OF CONTENTS Edward Warren Holmes 1963-1966 Consul, Blantyre, Nyasaland Pierre Shostal 1967-1969 Political Officer, Lilongwe James P. Thurber, Jr. 1969-1971 Public Affairs Officer, USIS, Blantyre John A. Buche 1970-1972 Deputy Chief of Mission, Blantyre Herman J. Rossi III 1970-1972 Economic Officer, Blantyre William C. Burdett 1970-1974 Ambassador, Malawi Robert A. Stevenson 1974-1978 Ambassador, Malawi Gilbert H. Sheinbaum 1976-1978 Deputy Chief of Mission, Lilongwe Harold E. Horan 1979-1980 Ambassador, Malawi Stedman Howard 1981-1984 Public Affairs Officer, USIS, Lilongwe Robert J. Kott 1981-1984 Deputy Chief of Mission, Lilongwe Dennis C. Jett 1986-1989 Deputy Chief of Mission, Lilongwe Michael Pistor 1991-1994 Ambassador, Malawi A. Ellen Shippy 1998-2000 Ambassador, Malawi EDWARD WARREN HOLMES Consul Blantyre, Nyasaland (1963-1966) Edward Warren Holmes was born in Beverly, Massachusetts in 1923. He received a bachelor's degree from Brown University in 1945 and a master's degree in international law from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1946. Mr. Holmes joined the Foreign Service in 1946. He served in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Israel, South Africa, Ethiopia, Malawi, Ghana, and Washington, DC. Mr. Holmes was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy in 1993. 1 Q: You left [Ethiopia] in 1963 and went right to another African country. HOLMES: That's right, direct transfer to Blantyre. Q: In Malawi. HOLMES: Well, it was then Nyasaland. Q: It was still part of the federation, where... HOLMES: Still part of the federation, which I have mentioned before. Q: Where you had already predicted its fall. Did anybody say, well, here we are, still, or something like that? HOLMES: Well, not really. I got to Blantyre, and the British governor was still there; it was still a colony (technically a protectorate, but it's about the same, really). But it was very, very clear that independence was coming. And it came within six months or so after my arrival. Q: What were you doing there? HOLMES: Well, I was a consul. You see, this was under the old structure. I was technically assigned to Salisbury, because this was rapidly changing. The British didn't like the idea of our having separate consulates in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland because that would indicate we thought the place was going to become independent. They wanted us to be in Salisbury, which was the capital of the federation. So technically I was assigned to Salisbury, but on detached duty to Blantyre. It was a fig leaf. By then, the fig leaf was very thin, although technically I was assigned to Salisbury (detailed to Blantyre). But that didn't last long, because, as I say, when I arrived it was very clear, within a very short time, although the date hadn't been set, but it was clear that there was going to be independence. There had been serious riots in Blantyre. The British troops had fired and forty-five people were killed... [static] but once they... the whole federal structure of government, the civil service and so forth, ended. Q: What were you doing, preparing for an embassy? HOLMES: Yes, preparing for an embassy. But while I was there, I was consul in charge, it was called, at the consulate. Q: Did you find yourself... advisor... HOLMES: We had good relations with Dr. Banda. We had good relations with the British. But... I was preparing for an embassy, basically. At some point it was raised to a consulate general... queen, which had never been... And then, within, I think, ... or ten months or some date after 2 independence came... Prince Philip came down... the British flag came down at midnight... up... and I became... Q: ... HOLMES: Not really... moral support. There was... I think he wanted moral support. He didn't ask for it... well, of course, he was... he was not in a position to ask... I met with him frequently, he came to my house on occasion... other times I'd talk to him on the phone... He wanted moral support. Q: ... United States... HOLMES: No, he never... He, of course, trained in the United States... lived in... many years. He was very... In a sense, he was called back as a figurehead by the young... But he took over; he was not a figurehead. He was a very strong... Now... There was an attempted revolt by the young Turks, and he put it down forcefully. He was not... shortly after... while I was still there, it happened. Q: ... HOLMES: No, I don't recall... He felt that we were in favor of what he was doing... moral support. We had to walk a little bit of a tightrope. After all, the British are our... allies... too strongly. I had very good relations with the governor... around the country... preparing... transition took place, although... He was... Q: ... HOLMES: ... Oh, well, that was one of those curious situations. Blantyre is and was a major city... commercial. It's still small; the whole place is small, everything's small. But Zomba was up in the highlands, and that was the British colonial capital, and that was about one hour's drive from Blantyre. Actually, I lived in Blantyre, but went to Zomba for talks with the governor. The governor lived there, as did the British administration. But Dr. Banda lived in Blantyre. So, I don't know what to say. As I say, I was assigned to Salisbury... to Blantyre, although he capital was in Zomba... PIERRE SHOSTAL Political Officer Lilongwe (1967-1969) Pierre Shostal was born in Paris in 1937. He graduated from Yale in 1956 and from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1958. His postings include Leopoldville, Kinshasa, Brussels, Lilongwe, Moscow, Kigali, Hamburg and Frankfurt. He was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy on June 16, 1997. 3 Q: What were you doing in Malawi? SHOSTAL: I was Political Officer at the Embassy there. Q: Could you explain both where Malawi is and what the situation was at that time? SHOSTAL: Malawi is in southeastern Africa, just north of Mozambique and just west of Tanzania. In other words, it's a landlocked country. To its west is Zambia. So, that sort of gives you the location. It's a rather small country, quite poor, dominated by one of the great East African lakes, Lake Nyasa. The time that I was there was a period of geographic isolation and also political isolation for Malawi. What do I mean by that? Well, first of all, the geographic isolation was reinforced by the war that was going on then in northern Mozambique, the anti- colonial war being waged in Mozambique. Also, that sense of isolation was further reinforced by the Rhodesian sanctions that were going on at that time. The international community had imposed economic sanctions to try and bring the self-proclaimed Government of Rhodesia to heel. Where that affected Malawi was that a lot of the traffic and transportation links southward ran through Rhodesia, so the combination of those factors, the Mozambique Civil War and the Rhodesian sanctions, which for example made it possible for us to travel to Rhodesia. During my tour in Malawi, that sense of isolation was reinforced by a political decision by the President of Malawi, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, to establish diplomatic relations with South Africa. This made Banda the odd-man out of black Africa. Q: When you talk about Banda, you could put it in two parts: one, before you went there and when you got there, how did you view him? SHOSTAL: Well, Banda was and actually is still alive and is now a very old man in prison, a really unique character. He was an African nationalist, in some respects one of the founding fathers of African nationalism, but he was also highly conservative and pragmatic, unlike the man who had been his mentor when both of them were in exile in the '40s and '50s in England, Kwame Nkrumah. When Banda returned to Africa from England, where he'd practiced medicine, in 1963 to become the first President of Malawi, he had very little patience for the kind of economic Marxism that people like in Nkrumah and other African nationalists at that time had. The result was that, although he copied some of their political ideas, for example one party rule, of people like Nkrumah, he gave them a very conservative cast that led him pretty quickly to part company with what was then called the Pan-African movement. Banda also realized that he had an opportunity for overcoming a certain amount of economic isolation through establishing relations with South Africa. South Africa was very eager to have a black African country recognize it and Banda got substantial economic benefits in terms of trade and assistance from South Africa. In particular, South Africa was able to realize Banda's dream of building a national capital in his own home geographic area in Central Malawi. So, it was a rather interesting period to watch from that viewpoint, although rather far removed from the central stage of world affairs. Q: What was your feeling at the time, the Embassy's and your's, of Banda? 4 SHOSTAL: Well, there was quite a split. On the whole, the leadership of our Embassy, the Ambassador and DCM were really quite favorable to Banda's ideas. Both of them were personally rather conservative people. Q: Who were they? SHOSTAL: The Ambassador was Marshall Jones who had been in EAP and Bill Barnsdale was the DCM. Barnsdale had really been an Italian hand up until that point.
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